Category: Election 2007

Gloria Arroyo’s Team Unity had always boasted that Mindanao is their bailiwick but recanvassed South Cotabato votes showed people went for Genuine Opposition senatorial bets. Here’s Malaya’s story by Gerard Naval:

Related story from the Inquirer: Cayetano dislodges Arroyo in 8th place

The allegations of re-elected Gov. Daisy Avance-Fuentes that votes of several senatorial candidates were either padded or shaved in South Cotabato were confirmed yesterday.

After a recanvassing of the province’s votes, which was ordered by the National Board of Canvassers (NBC), 141,674 votes were credited to Team Unity’s Juan Miguel Zubiri, or 77,000 votes more than the 218,674 he got in the original certificate of canvass (COC) submitted by the South Cotabato board of canvassers. Zubiri remained No. 13 in the Comelec count after the new COC was admitted by the NBC.

Last Tuesday, the Concerned Citizens Group and Kontra Daya held an innovative silent protest while watching the canvassing of the senatorial votes at the PICC. They wanted to convey the message to Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos and his fellow commissioners that the citizenry would not allow another thwarting of their will.

Malaya’s editorial

By Wendell Vigilia

Former presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor today accepted defeat in the senatorial race.

“I concede to ease the tension … and to dismiss any notion that there may be illegal acts committed to attain my victory,” he said in a press conference with his wife July Rose and four children.

Defensor is at No. 15 based on the latest results of the national canvassing by the Commission on Elections.

A call for a clean, honest, quick, and transparent counting of the votes

We, the senatorial candidates of the Genuine Opposition, strongly denounce the numerous cases of actual and attempted eelctoral fraud,cheating, manipulation, and sabotage in relation to the senatorial elections and the ongoing counting of votes.

In particular, we vehemently object to the inclusion of the very questionable “election results” from Maguindanao in the national canvass in view of reports that these “results” were fabricated and that no actual election ccurred there. We also condemn the actual and attempted cases of vote-shaving/vote padding (dagdag-bawas) that have been carried out agfainst us and that are being medrely dismissed as “an honest mistake” or “a clerical error” without any thorough investigation.

Comelec has declared the special elections generally peaceful and successful. Here’s Inquirer’s report: The watchdogs were no match for the cheaters and the just-ended elections…

ABS-CBN correspondents Ricky Carandang and Noel Alamar recorded on camera a deplorable act by a Comelec official: taking custody of blank election returns and bringing them to his hotel.

The Comelec official, identified on TV as Jubil Surmieda of the Comelec’s legal department and Reanult “Boy” Macarambon, who was mentioned in the Hello Garci tapes scandal in 2004.

Confronted with the evidence (a video-tape of the transport of the ERs to the hotel), Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento can only say, “I stake my name on it.”

What’s the value of Sarmiento’s name now?

ABS-CBN story: